Academy Art Museum presents Rauschenberg 100: New Connections through May 3 — featuring the rarely exhibited 100-foot Chinese Summerhall and a local connection to the artist that no other institution can claim
EASTON, MD — Most of the world has never seen Chinese Summerhall. And most of the people who have seen it — saw it in Easton, Maryland.
That is the striking claim made by Christopher Rauschenberg, son of the legendary American artist Robert Rauschenberg, who visited the Academy Art Museum this past February to speak about his father’s photographic legacy. The work in question is Chinese Summerhall, a monumental 100-foot photographic panorama — rarely exhibited anywhere in the world — now on view as the centerpiece of Rauschenberg 100: New Connections, a centennial exhibition celebrating the 100th anniversary of the artist’s birth.
“This is a rare opportunity to experience one of Rauschenberg’s most ambitious works at full scale,” said Charlotte Potter Kasic, Executive Director, Academy Art Museum. “We’re proud to bring it to Easton as part of the global centennial.”
The exhibition closes May 3. This is one of the final opportunities to see it.
The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation has organized a year of centennial exhibitions and events at institutions across the globe — but the Academy Art Museum holds a distinction no other participating venue can claim. Donald Saff, master printer and longtime artistic collaborator of Robert Rauschenberg, lives in Talbot County, where the Museum is located.
The Academy Art Museum is one of a select group of institutions participating in the Rauschenberg Centennial — and the only one with a direct local connection to longtime collaborator Donald Saff, who resides in Talbot County. Saff founded the legendary printmaking workshop Graphicstudio at the University of South Florida in 1968, where his partnership with Rauschenberg first took root, and he later established Saff Tech Arts in Oxford, Maryland, where the two continued to produce ambitious work throughout the 1990s. Beyond Rauschenberg, Saff is known for his prolific collaborations with leading figures of late-twentieth-century art, including Roy Lichtenstein, Nancy Graves, James Rosenquist, Jim Dine, and James Turrell. The Academy Art Museum has previously presented Rauschenberg's work in 2004 and 2014, drawing from its collection of limited-edition prints created through that collaboration. On March 27, Saff's public talk sold out entirely, with a waitlist.
During his February talk, Christopher Rauschenberg reflected on his father’s journey to China, at a time when the country had only recently reopened to Western artists.
“If someone told you there was a door, and behind that door was a whole other world, would you open it?”
For Rauschenberg, the answer was yes — driven by curiosity, experimentation and cultural exchange.
The resulting photograph stretches 100 feet. Power lines become through-lines. Ordinary objects abstract into shape and form. Collage emerges from careful observation. Rauschenberg never tells viewers what to think. He offers access points — an invitation to see.
The exhibition has been accompanied by sold-out programs, including artist talks, hands-on art labs, and workshops inspired by Rauschenberg’s materials and process.
The exhibition will close on May 3, following the Museum’s May 2 Spring Gala, Ordinary Objects, Extraordinary Night, a celebration of the exhibition inspired by Rauschenberg’s use of everyday materials.
Keynote speaker Daniel Weiss, Director and President of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and former President of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Met), will speak on the role of museums in sustaining communities.
Rauschenberg 100: New Connections has been on view since December 11, 2025, and runs through May 3. Admission is free.
